Amen. Turn in your Bibles, if you would, to Ephesians chapter 6. I guess it would be appropriate to say good to see half of you. You don't get to pull that off very often. I want to preach to you. It seems like the whole world has blown up since we were together last. So it's good to be able to come back to a semblance of normalcy. So I wanted to take the opportunity this morning to preach on the subject of fatherhood. A very pertinent issue in our day and time, as in most all of society. And I want to speak to you on the subject of Spirit-filled fatherhood. Spirit-filled fatherhood. This text is very familiar to us. Pastor Jeff asked me what I was preaching on this morning. I told him fatherhood and he just started quoting the verses. They're very familiar to us. And so we're going to spend some time trying to unpack and flesh out what does that look like on a daily basis in our daily lives as fathers. We want to understand what the Bible has to say about the role of a father. So let me read the text, Ephesians 6 and verse 4. And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. That's it. That's our calling, that is our charge as fathers, and is desperately needed in our society, in our country, in our churches, in the world, is for dads to fulfill this God-assigned role. To use the modern vernacular that we've been hearing, Dad, you are an essential worker. Much of the messaging in relationship to fatherhood is that fathers are not essential. They're not necessary. And so dads, this morning I want to challenge you to fulfill God's calling on your life as a father. It's not hard to browbeat dads because we have lots of sins and lots of problems. But my desire this morning is to encourage you as a father to spirit-filled leadership in your home. We're going to talk about a lot of things you're doing wrong, a lot of things you need to be doing. But I want you to come away from this and say, I do all of those things and I don't do the things I should do. But what I need to be is a spirit-filled man leading my home. And to see how vital your role is, not only in your home and in your family, but amongst the church and amongst the nation. How essential your role as a father is. It's foundational. I was, we have a retired educator in our church and was talking to him recently, and he had gone out to lunch with a local middle school principal. And they were discussing the growing challenges of being an educator in today's environment. This was prior to COVID, so not in relation to that stuff. But they were discussing the challenges of education and discipline and the deterioration of the home. And the principal shared with him the demographics. It prompted him to look into the demographics of their students in the school. And so he looked into out of the 720 students in the middle school. You know, with the access to technology, it's not hard to pull up and look at data. And he wanted to look at specifically how many out of the 720 middle school students were living with both of their biological parents. All the different categories. But how many out of 720 students, so this man in our church asked me to guess, Out of 720 students, how many live with both biological parents? The answer was 35. 5% for you mathematicians. 5% of middle school children living with both parents. Fatherlessness is an epidemic, maybe a pandemic. What are the means to address this problem? There are secular means to address this problem. The Eugene Superintendent was named National Superintendent of the Year. He's a good man, he's a Christian man. His outstanding contribution was he developed a mentor program for struggling students, struggling children, to have a mentor spend 30 minutes a week with them during lunch. And so he solicited individuals from the community who would be willing to volunteer 30 minutes a week to sit down with a student and just listen to them and have lunch with them. and how transformational that was for a student just to be able to talk to someone, to an adult, for 30 minutes to the point that this was his accomplishment for being the national superintendent of the year. There are efforts ministry-wise, there's a ministry out west, it's called Fathers in the Field, because they see this issue, and they ask fathers to commit to spending one Saturday a month with a fatherless boy. And just spending a Saturday in the field, doing what you do. Trying to minister to the widow and the fatherless in their affliction. See, dads, there is a war against you in the home. It's a principle where if they can smite the shepherd, the sheep are scattered. If they can distract the father, they can capture the children. And so my plea with you this morning as we look at God's solution to these issues, what He's calling a Spirit-filled Father to be, Because in our nation, they're killing the children by the millions. Where are the fathers saying, wait, stop, that's mine, taking ownership? And so to that, In the book of Ephesians, as God unfolds His ultimate purpose from the foundations of the world, as you know the book, as He lays it out in the first half to bring glory to Himself by the death of His Son, the redemption of His church that we've been called to, He then calls us in chapter 4 to walk worthy of that calling and gives all these different roles, and then He gets down to fathers. And he says, just very simply in one verse, which we're going to look at, and ye fathers, there's something you're not to do, and there's something to do. Provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. See, if fatherhood were a physical war, fought with guns and bullets, most of the men in the church would fare well. They would fare better than the national average. But it's not a physical war, it's a spiritual war. But it is a war. This war is not fought with carnal weapons, but spiritual weapons. If you want to be successful in this warfare, as a father, you need to be a spiritual man. If someone were to intrude into your home at night, few fathers would abdicate their calling to defend their children. They would meet them at the door. But our enemy is more subtle than that. The enemy is perfectly content to have you in the center of your living room on a throne, provided that you're distracted from your task and that he can have access to the children. As I mentioned, there are a lot of voices about what fatherhood entails, but this Scripture condenses it down to one verse. And our aspiration as fathers should be to be a man. Right? We raise our boys and say, hey, be a man. I raise my little boys, when they skin their knee, take it like a man. We want to have good men. We want them to have character and work and to do right things and make good choices. We want them to be responsible. We'd like to have great men who accomplish things. But ultimately, we want godly men. Men who walk with God in order that they may teach their children to walk with God. And that requires being spirit-filled. In Ephesians 4, there's the familiar text in verse 22 through 24 about the putting off and the putting on. In verse 22, that you put off concerning the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts. Much of what we naturally adopt as being a father, the traits, need to be put off. We've learned some bad habits. They're contagious. We pick them up from our father. We pick them up from other fathers. And we need to be renewed in the spirit of your mind. and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." So, a biblical calling for men to be Spirit-filled fathers. Number one, two things I want to look at. Number one, the first half of this verse, in chapter 6 and verse 4, your relationship with your children. And then secondly, your responsibility with your children. See, the Bible is great. It knows how we are as men. It gives us concentrated, no bullet points, no honey-do list, no lengthy, just, shoot it to me straight, here's what you need to not do, and here's what you need to do. So that's our goal, is to come away with that crystal clear in our minds of what it is that God is calling us to do as He fulfills His purpose through us as fathers. Your relationship with your children. Don't be someone who provokes them to wrath. Don't be someone who has a strained relationship where your child despises you. How does that happen? Well, there's several things we have to put off as fathers that provoke, that instigate, that create tension and bitterness and anger and hatred. I want to look at several of them. This isn't intended to be a brow-beating grocery list of everything you're doing wrong, but it is intended to be an inventory and say, hey, are these things present in my life that might need to be put off? I think ideally, none of these are present, but if we could come away from this as fathers and say, you know, that one right there, I need to put that off. That's me. So I'm going to give you a list and a gist in my reflections about what would prompt a father to provoke his child to wrath. Number one under this is putting off injustice in the relationship. As a father, one of our roles is to establish a culture of justice in our home. You are, in essence, the chief justice. You are the arbitrator of righteousness. When someone feels violated, what provokes someone to wrath? What provokes you to wrath? When you feel like this is an injustice, this is not right. My dad is not treating me right. Or he's allowing siblings or someone else to not treat me right. This, many times, manifests itself in discipline, especially if dad is not disciplining properly. If dad is disciplining out of anger and frustration, it causes a child to feel violated at high levels. We need to do right by our kids. and that they understand, and that it's not done in a retaliation, that we have a culture of justice in our home. This, I think, also entails favoritism. When you think of, as you think of the fathers in the Scriptures, especially the Old Testament, the different narratives that are given, if we went through Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and David, we could tell who their favorite kids were. And we don't even know them, right? You could tell, hey, he liked this one, he didn't like this one, he had a problem with that one. Well, if you and I can read about somebody who lived thousands of years ago and tell which kids they were favoring, we ought to be... Part of creating a culture of justice is having that In our home, where there is a sense of, dad is treating me with love, affection, and right, while I'm stumbling, I hesitate to use the word fairness, because there's so much packed into that. Secondly is putting off intimidation in the relationship. You say, well, this would never happen. See, as fathers, we have to be careful. When I read, provoke not your children to wrath, you know what word comes to my mind? A bully. Dads, you can't be a bully. Right? We have to not be intimidating them because we're bigger than them. Right? We don't want our children just to submit to us because we're bigger than them. This is where that relationship aspect comes out. Recently, I told one of my children to do something, they didn't do it. It happens occasionally. And I don't even remember what the issue was. I think it was go to bed. That's usually a recurring theme at our house. And I have a saying, you can go to bed or you can get a spanking and go to bed. Which one do you want? And in this situation, there was a pause, and the child said, I think I'm gonna need a spanking. And that took me, that was, he wasn't being off-putting, it wasn't, he just, if you're, I know what you're expecting me to do, And if you're going to want me to do that, I can tell that that's just not going to happen with where I'm at. And I was having a hard time not laughing. I gave the spanking. I said, sorry, Dad. Now I can go to bed. And I just shook my head at that and thought, well, whatever it takes, I guess. We need to put off being impossible. Exasperating our children with unreal expectations. Being impossible where they can't please you. Right? We've all seen this before. We've all had a boss. Maybe had a father. You just could not please them. That has a tendency to provoke, to wrath. It doesn't matter what I do, Dad's still nitpicking. It's not that the glass is half empty or full, it's that the glass has a crack in it and it just is never good. None of us appreciate that, but these are things that we have to be aware of and say, hey, am I provoking my child here? Because I'm just always on them that something isn't right. Put off indifference. The opposite of that is I have no expectations on my kids. I just neglect them. I have no clue where they're at. Or I communicate to my child that you're worthless, you can't do anything. God forbid that we even say you can't do anything right. Right? And yet we see of our Heavenly Father Remember, there's a couple times in the Scriptures where God speaks out of heaven about His Son. You know what He says? This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. It would do us good as fathers to communicate to our children that they're pleasing. You've pleased your Father. Don't be impossible. Don't be indifferent. Children have an innate desire to please their Father and to earn His approval. Be someone who gives that. I'm not someone like that by nature. Even if I am pleased, I'm not someone who verbalizes it. My wife helps me with this daily. to verbalize approval, seek opportunities. Instead of going around, and we can be like this as dads, and there is, I think my list is at 742 this morning of things that aren't going right. But we could go around and find some things that are going right, may take a lot longer, and the list won't be as long, But this is what I'm talking about being a Spirit-filled person. God doesn't follow you around and point out everything that you've done wrong today constantly. Right? He will reprove. He will correct. But He's also affirming. Put off instigation. Don't instigate. I think that's really the essence of what provoking them not to wrath. Don't pick on them. This is where, in my mind, it conjures up, there can be a sense of a bully, right? You're always picking on them. You can tickle. Tickling's okay. Until they're seven. And then my kids look at me like, Dad, would you leave me alone? Put off irritation. Right? Our children, we don't want to send a message that our children just irritate us. Right? Isn't that the great thing about our Heavenly Father? He invites us, welcomes us, calls us. Pastor Dave read it this morning. Come! Come! Come on in! Approach boldly! Come in! Ask whatever you want! He doesn't give an attitude of, not now! Right? This is kind of a built-in, baked-in problem with parenting and being a father is that our children get all of our weaknesses. And so they irritate us because they're like us. They do the things that we are already frustrated over. This is a great recipe for hypocrisy where we hold them to a higher standard than we hold ourselves to. or to be harsh with them. What do you want? Treat them as a nuisance. These are things that you don't have to try as a dad to have these things cropping up in your life. And again, my desire in this is not to just give a grocery list of things you're doing wrong, but it is to shine a little bit of light on it and say, hey, are these things in there? Because if these things are in there, Your children are going to be provoked by this. They're not going to like it any more than you or I would. Right? But because we're bigger than them and because we're dad and we have that authority, sometimes we make the mistake of thinking, it's okay if I just go ahead and lean on them a little bit and be a little heavy. Well, there's a time to be heavy, but it's not because we're just being difficult or had a bad day. put off implacability. Meaning you can't be placated. You can't appease them. You just can't make dad happy, no matter what I do. If I mow the lawn, I didn't edge it right. If I didn't put the mower back in the garage right, or this, or this, or this. Right? We've all been there and done that. I think of Nabal. He just couldn't be reasoned with. As fathers, we want to be reasonable men. Last one on my list, put off inconsistency. Don't be a moving target where your children have to walk on eggshells and never know if what they're doing is acceptable. There's no rhyme or reason. That was just off looking at what would provoke our children to wrath. There's all of these traits that we can pick up and habits that we can pick up. And so my plea with you this morning is be conscious of that. And as a spirit-filled man, to think, wait a minute, that's not appropriate. I shouldn't be acting like that. I need to stop doing that. Because all of these are ways that we can provoke our children to anger, and in many ways, they're forms of abuse. Maybe just verbal abuse, but abuse nonetheless. And it may be necessary as a spirit-filled man to confess to your children and humble yourself to your children and say, you know, dad's not right there. I have these situations on a daily basis. Yesterday's manifestation was we had the truck all packed from our trip and I came in yesterday. all the luggage under a tarp and strapped down. And so I asked one of my sons, hey, would, and I thought, I don't want to make him have to unload all that. But the kids are hungry to get their suitcase to have a change of clothes. So if you could just go unstrap it and kind of get out of the way and then let the ant colony come in and everybody will grab their bag and then you don't have to do all the work. You just unstrap it so they can get to it. Well then as we're sitting there, about an hour later, I don't know if it did this here, but just started pouring rain. I mean like a sheet of rain. So then my mind instantly goes, what's in the back of the truck that's just getting ruined and loss, you know, that I'm gonna have to deal with? And would you believe, I remembered my box of books. So I packed a box of all the books. I mean, good books, big books, thick ones, expensive ones. They're all in a box. So I thought, I'll keep them all together so they're not rolling around on the floor getting walked on. And I had this moment of just seeing the rain come down in a sheet. And so I called my son. And I said, did you get my box out of the back of the truck? And I didn't quite say it quite that gentle. And what I was implying was, surely, for the love of all that's right, you got that out, right? You didn't leave anything in the back of the truck. And I was accusatory, and I was setting, as chief justice, I was probing the witness and asking questions to convict. Because then, it would be his fault, and I could, you're wrong, and my books are ruined, and it's your problem. And then he said to me, Dad, all you told me to do, because I said, did you get everything out of the back of the truck? He said, Dad, you said just unstrap it. Just in that instant, I just thought, oh, you're right. Sorry. But would you go out and get that box for me? And as a good kid, No attitude. Sure, Dad. I mean, I felt really bad. But I was dressed, and he was in, you know, shirts and a tank top or whatever. And just went out there without, if that had been me, I'd have been like, come on, Dad, this is clearly an injustice. And just ran out there, got the books, brought them in, set them on the porch, and with minimal water damage. I say that because that could have gone a completely different direction. And there's times as fathers when this is part of what it means to be Spirit-filled. There's got to be that voice saying, hey, stop. Stop. You're wrong. Sometimes it's your wife, and sometimes it's the Holy Spirit, and we can wonder about discerning that. But as a dad, there needs to be time when you're apologizing to your kids when you're wrong. Just good theology, good Christianity, good gospel, good and necessary. Because ultimately, we want to have a relationship with our kids where we love them. And they love us. They want to be in our company. They enjoy our company. They are comfortable to approach us. They don't think, oh, I can't go to dad because I know he's going to be a jerk. They're going to know what you think, usually, if you've been teaching them. But we have to make it easy for them to approach and to come to us. Be approachable. I heard it said recently by a pastor that there's some conversations we need to have face-to-face with our children. There's some conversations we can have side-by-side. I found that helpful. Some conversations are awkward. I can't look you right in the eye, but we can be driving in the car and I can just kind of lob it out there. How do your children approach you and come to you? Do they come like the dog that's excited that his owner is here? Or with their tail between their legs, timid? We want to have a healthy relationship with our children. The essence of the first half of verse 4 there is don't put them down. And then the second half, bring them up. Don't provoke them to wrath. Don't be chopping them down. Be bringing them up. Bring them up. Cultivate. And that means there needs to be more fertilizer and less Roundup. As dads, it's not hard to, you know, Roundup's a very powerful thing. You just, especially they give you that one with a spray nozzle on it. You can just walk around, just a little squirt of that, and boom, shrivels up and it's gone. Yes. Right, we don't, with our children, we want to be cultivating. There's gonna have to be enough weeding, but we can't come in with Roundup and just, it's called an indiscriminate herbicide, or a non-selective, it kills everything. It's necessary to spend this time with our children on what needs to be put off, because if you don't have your child's heart, the second half of the verse will not be received well. Do you understand what I'm saying here? If you don't put off those things, and you're the dad who has those things, and now you want to start teaching the Bible, Do you see where there's going to be a potential conflict? Is it's going to breed rebellion in their heart because, Dad, you're not doing these things, and you want me to do them? And you're giving me an attitude? And so that's why it starts here with, hey, don't do these things, don't do that. And then come in and play the spiritual card of being that dad. And that's where I think the hinge there is the confession. Acknowledge that. Acknowledge your sins. And then lead them in the Scriptures. It's not just a relationship. We're not just trying to be their friend. We ultimately want to raise them up to maturity and train them in godliness. This is the putting on. Put off these things, fathers, and put this on. Bring them up. Here it is. What do I need to do as a dad? You're not going to hear this anywhere else in the world. But fathers, don't do this, but listen loud and clear. God, what are you going to hold me accountable to at the judgment seat of Christ as a father? Did you bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? We will be evaluated on how we instructed them in God's Word and prepared them to see the world through a biblical lens. Teaching them, what does God think about this? What does God think about this? This is where those conversations, as the Scripture says, when you rise up, when you lie down, when you walk by the way, what does God think about this situation? Let's talk it out. and be shaping and cultivating in them an ability to see the world through God's perspective and with His purposes in mind. Do you realize how sharp of a contrast that draws for children? They start to make the connections. It's exciting and amazing. It's like planting the garden when you start seeing things sprout up and blossoming and fruit showing up. What an awesome, exciting thing. Both this nurture and admonition, both of them entail instruction. There seems to be some that's cultivating and fertilizing, and others that is more admonishing and correcting gently. And admonishment is a gentle reproof. It's not a sarcastic, frustrated, irritated lash. Right? This is a high calling. This is relying on the Spirit of God to just take a breath, realize, okay, I need to put that off. And so as we do that, I want to look at, how do I do this? How do I move forward in bringing up my children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? Well, it needs to be proactive parenting and not reactive parenting. What that means is, is the time to have the conversation about a relationship is not when your child's in a relationship. They're not listening at some point. So let me give you several things that I think will help. Again, giving a lot. I'm not saying you have to do all of this. But my desire would be, as we leave today, that you'd say, you know what, I need to do that. That's the next step I need to take. That's one of the questions I love to do in doing teacher evaluations, and I even use it in interviews now, is where do you see your next step of growth as an educator? What do you think's the next thing you need to work on? You know why that's a good interview question? It's because if they can't come up with anything, What message does that send? I've arrived. I don't really see anything I need to work on. So it's good for us as Christians and as fathers to be... So several things under this set a time to do this. To bring up and nurture our children and bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Meals is a good time because they always come around at that time. I've been in some of your homes, and seeing as you have meals where there's a reading of Scripture, or there's a prayer, sometimes we can take those lightly, like, okay, say grace before the meal. Make those meaningful. Set a time. When am I going to proactively give a spoonful to my child of God's Word? Maybe it requires humbling yourself and asking one of your pastors. I can assure you as a pastor, if fathers came up to me or them and said, you know, I really want to grow as a father in bringing up my children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. I'm uncomfortable with it. It's awkward. I feel incompetent. Where should I start? What should I do? But they desire to help you in that. Maybe they could even model it for you. Say, hey, could you come and just show us what that would look like? It doesn't have to have three hymns, a prayer, and an exposition of scripture, an invitation. It doesn't need to be all of that, but it needs to be something. A lot of it depends on the age of your kids. Keep it simple. Keep it organic. I can be a little inclined to delve into systematic theology for our family devotions and lose everybody, my wife included. But just some suggestions of just praying together. Just a time that we come together and it's not just praying for the meal, but we're praying for specific requests that we have as a family. One thing I like is each person, you get one request. Whatever that is, we're just going to pray, and we're going to pray for each other. You get your one request, whatever is urgent in your life at that time, that's what we want to pray for. Read a chapter of the Bible together. Especially if you have younger kids, they love to read. I have kids who will skip in line as we go around the family and read a verse at a time. They want to skip and get ahead and read two verses. They're trying to figure out the seating chart of where's dad going to sit so I can sit there and then I'll get to read more. Great! Dad adds a running commentary, which sometimes can get long. Sometimes it's good as you're reading things in Scripture, and you come across something, and the kids ask a question, and you don't know to say, wait for it, I don't know. I need to study that out. Let's study that. Let's read that. Let's think about that. Maybe sing a song. I'm sure all fathers are longing for the opportunity to lead some singing in their home. I can say that's probably the most awkward things that I do, but I will say this, I think it's been one of the most beneficial, is kids need to see dad, whether it's in church or in the home, belting it out, praises to God. If you're off key, probably makes it better. They know it's awkward, but they need to see dad is in this. If there's a concentrated vitamin that you could take, that would be a good one. And my kids, I live in a family where all of them are more musically inclined than I am. I can get off key, wrong key, voice crack, you name it, and they make it seem like they have perfect pitch all the time. But they love it when dad goes off and I can see them making eye contact. They're judging me, Caleb. They're judging me. And they kind of laugh, like, oh, there goes Dad. He's off. And I see these sideward glances. But you know what I've learned to do? Just push right on through that. You know what I tell them? Well, you know how to sing better than I do. Why aren't you leading it? And why don't you carry the melody so I don't have to? Right? It just needs to be a time where we have a God that we worship and love. who takes care of us, and who knows the end from the beginning, and has a plan, and He's intimately involved in every detail of our lives, and He's good, and we want to worship Him. Because there's not a lot of optimism when they leave the doors of the house. People are in panic. We need to infuse our kids with a semblance of optimism that God is on the throne. Working all things together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose. All things are working. He that sitteth in the heavens is laughing at the schemes of the wicked. Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing? The Lord will have them in derision. That's our God. There's Bible songs. There's the Bible chronologically, you can learn the Bible chronologically. I would sing it to you, but it would probably be a blessing. Learn to sing the books of the Bible. Catechisms, setting those to music. Maybe just a daily devotional, one question a week. Maybe one verse a day. Just read a verse. If you have older kids, let's read a verse, let's chew on this today. When we meet up at dinner, tell me what you came up with, what that verse is saying, what it means, what it applies. Maybe read a book out loud. Pilgrim's Progress or Narnia. I remember hearing Dr. Beeky speak one time about, I think it was after his father had passed away, and they had a memorial where all the children in the family were there. And they each shared one thing that they most appreciated about their dad. And almost to a man without rehearsing it, they all were saying on Sunday afternoons, remember when dad would read to us? That had that impact on all of the siblings. Discuss the gospel. Ask each person to define it. We have some hilarious kids, and some of their answers can, you know. But just ask, what is the gospel? And then, as a dad, just praying for them to bring God into your family. Because, dad, you're going to fail miserably every day. And some of that's the source of our frustration. But this is why it needs to be spirit-filled of just trying to honor the Lord. And when we fail, it's OK. If we mess up, we fess up. There's a lot more things to talk about, but I won't keep. I will say this. Children need to be taught everything. They come out of the womb, they know absolutely nothing. They don't know what a chair is. You could tell them it was a book, and a book is a chair, and they would not know better. And so we have this opportunity and this responsibility. And our world is a demonstration of a generation of people with no father, not teaching them, not bringing them up. Fathers, you can't do this in your own strength. You need to be Spirit-filled. This isn't intended to be a sermon about just be a better dad, try harder. But it's to look at our hearts and say, is there anything that needs to be put off in my role as a father? And what do I need to put on? How can I bring my children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? Because I will say this in this warfare, the enemy will tell you, this isn't a big deal. This isn't a big deal. It's not urgent. Don't make this a priority. And then after it's too late, he'll say, oh, this is a really big deal. Now it's too late. There's nothing you can do about it. It leads you to despair. When the reality is, is the opposite is true. It is a big deal. It is a big deal right now. It is a big deal today. And it's never too late. It is never too late. Until you're dead, it is never too late to be cultivating a relationship, even with adult children, and to continue to be developing that, even if they're adults. It's going to take a different role, certainly. And I would say this as grandparents. What a phenomenal opportunity. You can have a powerful role. My grandfather taught me to read before I went to kindergarten. You can bring perspective and optimism into the life of your grandchildren. See, that's one of the things about parenting, is by the time we learn what it is, it's over. Well, then you become grandparents. I was thinking about this on the drive. It's kind of like baby teeth. By the time you figure out how to floss and brush, you got holes in all your teeth. And then they fall out, and God says, well, here's another go at it. Here's your permanent teeth. And I was thinking, you know, that's like grandparenting. I've got holes in all my teeth, but I've got a second go at it. Acknowledge the mistakes you've made and try to make them better. Let me read you a quote, and I'll be done. It's from Albert Barnes. He said, people teach by example, by incidental remarks. by the neglect of that which they regard as of no value." Meaning you're teaching by what you neglect. A man who does not pray is teaching his children not to pray. He who neglects the public worship of God is teaching his children to neglect it. He who does not read the Bible is teaching his children not to read it. Such is the constitution of things that it is impossible for a parent not to inculcate his own religious views on his children. So the greatest thing that you can do as a dad is not just to be a good dad, not to be a great dad, but to be a godly dad. To be a man of God, a man who walks with God because so much more of life is what is caught by your children than what is taught. And so my challenge to you is to see the significance of the role that you have as fathers to influence your children and your children's children. And that they could consider your example and do likewise. And that's going to come by being filled with the Spirit of God on a daily basis. Let's pray. God, we thank you that you are a perfect Father. You are everything that we are not. You've never made a mistake. You have never treated us unkindly or unfairly or wrong or without justice and righteousness. And God, we can be overwhelmed with the sense and the responsibility of what it means to be a father. And God, I pray for our fathers, that you would help us to know you, to walk with you, that we might teach our children who you are, what you require of us, and that they might worship you and love you with all of their heart. God, help us. to be aware of those things that are provoking our children, help us to confess them and repent of them, and to see healthy, growing, flourishing children in our midst. That's our desire as individuals, as a church, and as a nation. Help us. We're thankful for your perfect example that you have reconciled us to yourself by the death of your Son. that you have pursued us and called us and invited us. And God, I pray that we would embrace that and rejoice in our relationship with you. Thank you for this word. I pray that you help us to live it. In Christ's name, amen.